“My dad was already carrying water on the railroad at my age.”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure he’d want you to get a better start than he had. All parents do.”
“You got kids?”
“No, but I know enough people who do.”
Jack remained quiet, but Shoe could see waves of emotion ebbing and flowing across his face. “Jack, what can I do to help?”
“Butt out.”
An awkward silence followed. Shoe looking out across the street toward the small shops there, and Jack tried to kick free a stone imbedded in the dirt. Apparently neither wanted to walk away and leave things like they were.
Jack spoke up first. “Depends on when they need me. I’ll find you later. Got to scoot.”
“Who’s they?”
“Western Union.”
“Are you crazy?” Shoe followed him out into the street. “Late nights on the town with hookers, thieves, and a murderer running loose?”
“Been there, done that a million times before, Shoe. I know lots of those people. They’re fine. The ladies give the biggest tips.”
“Ladies? Before is not now. With somebody floating around down there . . . Don’t kid yourself—yeah, that’s exactly what you are, a kid. Poor judgment is clouding your thought processes . . . Bicycle, hatband, the full uniform?”
Jack gave him a guarded look. “Yeeaahh.”
Shoe threw his arms up. “Jeez Maries, Jack. That just screams dough in your pocket, an easy mark for lots of unscrupulous people.”
Jack glared, opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again. He took off, matching the speed of a passing wagon, hoisted himself up into the open bed, and moved up behind the driver. “It’s fine,” he yelled at Shoe.
“Seven p.m.,” Shoe yelled back. He got no response. Jack turned his head away and started a conversation with the driver. Damn fool. Why did kids think they were invincible? What did the young’un expect to find out by haunting the wharf at night? Shoe suspected he would be doing the night’s reconnaissance alone.
As soon as Shoe went inside, he got the third degree from Fannie. Not verbally, but with those amazing eyes that locked on him and weren’t going to turn away until he explained what was going on with her brother. “Hormones and girls,” he said, bussing her cheek. “And how about you? Still my girl?” Her puzzled look told him he was trying too hard. He picked a table and parked himself. “Have to stay all day and do the waitress thing?”
She looked at Betty, who shook her head in a vigorous no and waved her off. Fannie sat down across from him, eyes and lips smiling broadly—the same way she looked when she brought home new shoes. “Free. What do you have in mind?”
Shoe returned the smile. Betty’s diner—it was better than hooley-goo. He didn’t have to plan it and it wouldn’t cost him a red cent.
Shoe started to ask her about Jack and Western Union, then decided against it. Jack wouldn’t have told her, so there was no use in worrying her. “The Koenigs’ new house on Twenty-First Street was a gift from magnate Carlton Donaldson. The old one was bought by a company called Calvert Unlimited. All this selling and buying and moving . . . Boom. Boom. Boom. It’s too convenient. My guess would be that Calvert is a shell company of Donaldson’s. For what profit, I’m unsure. We need to know whether any of the other houses on Opossum Pike are owned by Calvert, or by any other company, for that matter. If they are, get names and the dates.”
“Oh, I can handle that. In the courthouse, I suppose.”
“Right. The land records are in metal file cabinets at the bottom of the basement stairs. If I were you, I’d waltz in with that beautiful smile and just go down there. If that makes you uncomfortable, tell Miss McGlinty at the front desk that you need to follow up on some things for me.”
“Katherine McGinty? I know her. Consider it done.”
She said it with a swagger that almost made Shoe chuckle. She was fearless, and he pitied anyone who tried to deny her access. She initiated a peck on the lips and he happily obliged. “I’m meeting Rudy Becker at the wharf. If you don’t hear back from me by the day’s end, send in reinforcements.”
“If you don’t trust him, why on earth would you—your knickers are in a knot over this fellow. Walk away. You’re the better man. It will all work out.”
“Ahh,” Shoe said, trying to rub out an imaginary spot on the table. “It’s a bit more than that.” He could feel her stare trying to bore a hole through the thick protective wall he was throwing up around his thoughts and feelings. Her unspoken questions were bouncing like badly aimed arrows off its irregular stone surface. Sooner or later they would find a way through one of the arrow-slits in his carefully constructed battlement.
She reached out and tilted his chin up until they were eye to eye. “We’ll both feel better if you don’t shut me out.”
“It seems Dad was, a, uh, good father, a really good father, but a lousy husband.” With a sigh of resignation, he added, “Rudy Becker is my half-brother.” He leaned back just far enough to slip out of her grasp and shifted his gaze out the window. Foot traffic on the street had picked up. Apparently no one wanted breakfast; the doorbell hadn’t jingled once since he sat down.
She dropped her hand. “Well! Certainly didn’t see that one coming. Does he know what’s what?”
“Oh, yeah. And more. The dirty laundry’s been beaten against the rocks and hung out to dry many times over the years. He grew up without a father and supposedly I never had to do without. It’s no fault of either of ours, you know? But his animosity is thinly veiled. I’ll never been able to make amends.”
She was thoughtful a moment. “Watch your back, but don’t ever stop trying. Brothers aren’t all bad.”
“Oh, it’s not him I’m worried about. Well, yes, I do worry, but not in terms of safety. That’s someone else.” He sighed in frustration. “Too complicated, Fannie. Suffice it to say we have a truce. Maybe it will all work out.”
He kissed her again, a kiss as deep as they could get away with in a public place. She made him feel strong and capable, but he still walked out carrying as much worry on his shoulders as he had when he walked in. What were his plans if Rudy didn’t show?
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Dance
Rudy picked up two messages from the Calvert Hotel concierge and took the elevator up to his room. The first was from his employer, Calvert Unlimited, noting his failure to attend a prearranged meeting at Oscar’s Restaurant. It wasn’t intentional. Their crab imperial was excellent, and he had no desire to get on the wrong side of a reliable employer. He simply had too much on his plate. He’d reschedule right after he decided what to do about the dispatch from Emerson, who seemingly thought Rudy could conduct an investigation, coerce a murder confession out of Shoe, and tie up all the loose ends in a matter of days. Not happening, Mr. Rich Man’s Lackey. Of course, he’d have to dance around that. He checked his wristwatch. Emerson wanted a nine o’clock meeting. Rudy had three hours to decide how to either waltz or tango around framing Shoe for murder and still earn a paycheck. Emerson struck him as a waltz aficionado.
At midmorning, people were packing the hotel as if they were giving away lifetime supplies of French champagne and Camel cigarettes. Bellhops trotted overflowing luggage carts from curb to elevator as rich clientele floated aimlessly through the lobby on clouds of entitlement and indifference. The eggers’ Christmas Season was in high gear. Rudy threaded his way to the conservatory, where Emerson waited, chain-smoking as he watched the door.
“Mr. Emerson,” Rudy said, offering a handshake.
Emerson ignored the formality and snuffed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. “Give me one good reason why I should continue your services, Mr. Becker. You’ve been all over town with Mr. Shoemaker, and yet I have received nothing from you. You should have something by now.”
So it would be La Danse Apache, would it? Rudy wasn’t too surprised. He sat down with no intention of following Emerson’s lead. “So, you
have had someone tailing me! Tell me, Mr. Emerson, have they fared any better than I have?”
Emerson gave him a steely look and silence.
A definitive no as far as Rudy was concerned. “With all due respect, while this may seem an open-and-shut case, it isn’t. Shoemaker and I have bonded nicely along journalistic lines, but you can’t expect him to serve up his darkest secrets in a matter of a few days. If you feel that I’m not up to it, then maybe you should go with your other man. Pay me for additional services above your initial retainer and I’ll get out of your way—all confidentialities maintained, of course.” Yeah, it was a bit cheeky, but if Emerson trusted the abilities of the other investigator, he never would have hired Rudy in the first place.
Emerson continued to stare as if no one had ever bucked him. Then he slipped his hand into his inside breast pocket. So that was it. Emerson was an expert in booting employees to the curb. Rudy continued watching as he pulled out a checkbook, flipped it open, and began making out a check to him. When he had signed at the bottom, he folded it once against the top of the book and detached it. No emotion, no chitchat, just a passing moment in a busy day.
“I think this is more than fair,” he said, handing it to Rudy.
To maintain an air of indifference, Rudy desperately wanted to tuck it away in his jacket without peeking at the amount, but he could not. His heart skipped a beat or two. Three thousand dollars. Holy crap, three thousand dollars. It was the full sum Emerson had promised him the first day they met.
Emerson arched an eyebrow. “Quite frankly, I don’t have time to bring someone else up to speed.”
“You want me to finish and you’re paying me early?”
“Not exactly. Consider that an incentive, with the final agreed-upon payment still to come.”
Six thousand dollars total? “All right,” Rudy said, nodding. Well, not really all right at all, but it seemed like the right response.
“With one caveat.”
Ah, the rub!
“We wish you to do some additional work on another pressing issue. It seems someone may be land speculating here in town. Rumors are circulating that outrageously high bids have been made to some owners of sections of Calvert Cliffs. I don’t think I need to tell you what changes in ownership could mean to the scientific endeavor there. Find out what is going on, starting with the company that’s buying up the land. Dig up what you can on a Calvert Unlimited.”
Rudy nodded again. Only this time it wasn’t because he had nothing to say. He could say plenty about the company, but the conversation would not end well for him. He would start with his own employment at the land-sales company, and then he would finish with the man behind the shell company: Carlton Donaldson, Weathersby’s arch–political rival. Donaldson was a true environmentalist, and yes, the intent of the buyout was to preserve the cliffs, make them inaccessible to excavation, and create a national park for the benefit of the American public. Weathersby would go apoplectic.
He put the check inside his jacket. “Done.” Somehow.
“Now,” Emerson said, putting his checkbook away. “Where are you with Mr. Shoemaker?”
“First things first. Shoe knows someone is shadowing him. You need to get your other investigator to back off. No, on second thought, terminate his services: he’s not particularly good.”
Emerson smiled slightly. “That’s not your call, Mr. Becker.”
“If you won’t fire him, put him on something useful. There’s a boat called the Sea Kingdom at the wharf. The owner, Hanner Mackall, is a big-time smuggler. Have your guy stake him out. He may be in cahoots with someone down at the Museum dig stealing artifacts for the black market. Some of that Weathersby sponsorship money might be benefiting a few rich individuals. Tell that to your employer.”
Rudy leaned back in his chair and waited. If Emerson was truly in Weathersby’s inner circle, he would know whether Weathersby was using Mackall to acquire specimens for his own private use.
Emerson said nothing. Instead, he beckoned to the waiter, whispered a few words, and sent him scurrying off again. He remained silent as he took a cigarette from a handsome silver cigarette case—without any offer for Rudy to join him—and methodically lit it. And when the waiter returned shortly with an ice bucket and an opened, unlabeled wine bottle in it, he proceeded to pour two half-glasses without comment.
Rudy took a sip of the finest wine ever to hit his palate. Without a doubt, it was the best bribe he had ever been offered. But it would take a lot more to buy him, and certainly, it would never be by this man. “Well?”
Emerson polished off his glass and said, “Mr. Weathersby’s grant to the National Museum is a philanthropic gesture to the American public that will provide fruitful bounty for countless future generations. To suggest it might also be self-serving is a disgrace, Mr. Becker.”
“And you pulled out his finest private stock to tell me all that?” Rudy emptied his glass and placed it next to Emerson’s so that the two touched. “Check,” he said. “I don’t care what Weathersby does with what he skims. I do care who killed Wilhelmina Weathersby and I’m very close to discovering the particulars. When I know, you’ll get that information, and I hope that there is no blood on your hands. In the meantime, you keep your people out of my way.”
He walked out with his three thousand dollars and his dignity intact. Mena would have her justice no matter what.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Singing in the Key of C Note
It was 8:45 a.m.—enough time for Railway Express riders to depart the 8:30 thirty train and begin making their way to the boardwalk. Shoe melded into the crowd. They fell into four easy groups. There were suited businessmen who liked to take a quick look at the water and then hike back up to Main Street for their appointments; parents trying to entertain rambunctious children as they waited for the gates of the amusement park to open; and religious zealots looking for the site of the visitation, their noses buried in paperwork as they tried to marry up crudely drawn maps with what they found in front of them. Someone was missing a great opportunity to earn a few bucks by pointing out the way to the way. The fourth was a group of one: Rudy, dead ahead at the clock and watching him approach.
Shoe wondered if his brother would apologize for ducking out on him. Rudy didn’t have to be forthcoming about everything he knew—and Shoe suspected it was considerably more than what he let on—but if they couldn’t be honest with each other, an alliance between the two of them would be impossible. He needed to see some sort of contrition. He angled his course away from Rudy.
“Hey! Gone blind?”
Shoe kept walking and didn’t even look Rudy’s way. “No, deaf to your nonsense. Mind your own business.” He kept walking but didn’t get far before Rudy fell in beside him.
“This the way you treat all your partners? Jeepers, no wonder no one likes you.”
“You have us confused. They like me just fine. I just dissolved our partnership due to nonperformance on your part. Now scram!”
“Mad about the early rise? I didn’t promise to serve you breakfast in bed. Didn’t you get my note? Nine o’clock where the Chessie Belle docks.” He pointed to the clock. “The tower says you’re ten minutes late and still I waited.”
Rudy’s expression was as solemn and angelic as an altar server’s. But he was lying. Shoe had checked for a note before he left. He glanced at the clock. If it were correct, he was late. Only, it was never accurate. In the two years he’d lived in Nevis, Shoe had seen it both drag time and accelerate it. And it wasn’t a tower either, but a beautifully elaborate clock case mounted on a puny black metal lamppost. It didn’t chime, it didn’t bong, it just kept consistently inconsistent time. Townies spoke of it with reverence and most local directions included reference to it: “go right at,” “proceed past,” “meet me by.” It was a Nevis landmark and a strange source of civic pride. “That’s never right,” he said, proceeding on. “Come on. If we’re going to slink around, we need to look the part.�
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Tanner’s Mercantile—no connection to Riley Tanner—was at the end of the steamboat landing. Rudy reckoned it had been there almost as long as the ships had been sailing in. All the steamboat landings up and down the Calvert coastline had stores, although none as elaborate as this one. It had been a much-needed symbiotic relationship for an area whose lack of roads made the transportation of goods difficult.
A man here, a woman there . . . they weren’t the only Tanner’s shoppers. The store still turned over a good business, but its days as the only place in town with access to dry goods was over. As the downtown expanded with new stores, a variety of luxury goods, and the railroad to ship it all, the mercantile was slowing becoming an anachronism. Most of what Shoe saw here was run-of-the-mill, ungraded fabric goods. It was safe to say that the place had to either step up its game or have a fire sale. In Baltimore, he’d seen too many mom-and-pops fold the same way. It was great if you wanted the latest at competitive prices, bad if you had to find a new livelihood. Just ask his granddad.
They cruised the shelves of men’s britches, bypassing the few of fine cloth and cut in favor of overalls and coveralls. As they dug through a stack of dark denim pants, a pleasantly plump employee approached.
“May I assist you?” she asked.
“Two pairs of these, and, uh, khaki work shirts. Medium size?” Shoe added hopefully.
The woman considered each of them in turn, pulled a few items, and propelled both toward a fitting room at the rear of the store. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged with a look that would blend in more thoroughly with the dock workers. Rudy spent another few minutes selecting some other things—something about a lost suitcase—and they elicited a promise from the clerk to bundle up everything and deliver it to Shoe’s room at the Bayside by the end of the day.
“Okay,” Shoe said, not wasting any time on picking Rudy’s brain. “Spill on what you know. What was Mena doing the night of the murder?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to that. But there’s something more pressing. A witness.”
The Dame on the Dock Page 15